1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a conference system, and a control method of the information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a conference system (also referred to as “remote conference system”, “teleconference system”, and “video-conference system”) in which a remote conference (also referred to as “teleconference” and “video-conference”) is held by making a connection to a terminal device (also referred to as “conference terminal”) arranged at a remote location (site concerned) via a network such as the Internet has been widely used.
The conference terminal in the conference system is arranged in a conference room and the like at each location concerned and exchanges an image and audio of an attendee of the conference with a conference terminal at a counterparty to hold a remote conference. Specifically, each conference terminal receives video data and audio data transmitted from the conference terminal at the counterparty, outputs and displays a conference screen using the received video data in a display unit, and outputs the audio data via a speaker while imaging the conference attendee present in the remote conference by a camera, collecting sounds of the conference attendee by a microphone, and transmitting video data (image data) and audio data to the conference terminal at the counterparty.
Besides, there has been a demand not only for exchanging video data and audio data but also for sharing, with the counterparty connected, a content written to image data of information material and the like displayed during the conference and a newly written content in the conference system. Conventionally, there is only a method of actually imaging by a camera and showing the information material with hand-written notes in a case of sharing a hand-written content and therefore the hand-written content is not reflected at the counterparty connected.
For one solution, a conference system capable of not only exchanging video data and audio data but also sharing a content written on a touch panel (drawing data) with the counterparty connected by using a conference terminal provided with an interactive whiteboard (electronic whiteboard) including the touch panel has been proposed.
In the conference terminal using the interactive whiteboard, there is a case where a network bandwidth sufficient for transmission/reception of data including video data, audio data, and drawing data cannot be secured depending on a congestion situation of a line in realizing a communication by using a network such as the Internet used by many and unspecified users and it is necessary to allocate resources within a limited network bandwidth. Therefore, the conference terminal itself sets an upper limit of a usage bandwidth, encodes the data including the video data, audio data, and drawing data into a transmittable size, and then transmits the encoded data to the site of the counterparty.
The drawing data, while indicating written content data here, normally includes data of information material such as a document and a drawing as a target of writing (information material which is shared between own site and the site of the counterparty). In other words, since the drawing data in the conference system normally includes screen-shared data such as the information material which is displayed in a display unit of the conference terminal, it is necessary to secure a network bandwidth sufficient for the data transmission/reception.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-204437 discloses that a communication device, which is for example used in a teleconference, transmits data encoded by an object encoding system via a transmission line capable of providing a QoS (Quality Of Service) based service, such as the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). The communication device selects a service class suitable for the real time situation to transmit data in transmitting multiple pieces of object data, thereby reducing the communication cost as a whole while realizing data transmission in the suitable service class.
Incidentally, it is considered in the conference terminal using the interactive whiteboard that the kind of important information differs depending on the use scene. For example, in a conference of making a face-to-face discussion with the counterparty, the important information is video data since the recognition of expressions of the counterparty is needed. In a conference of sharing drawings and documents and making explanations by inserting additional writings such as descriptions and notes onto the drawings and the documents, the important information is, in contrast, drawing data since a recognition of the written content is needed.
However, data processing which takes account of and is appropriate to the use scene is not performed with respect to the data such as the video data and the drawing data in the conventional conference terminal using the interactive whiteboard.